This invention pertains generally to garment hangers and more specifically to a garment hanger adapted to be employed as a shipping hanger for garment-on-hanger use, said garment hanger having (1) a hanger body assembly in which the hanger body and the front and rear halves of the clamp assembly located at each end portion of the hanger body comprise a single manufactured part so that, when a biasing means is added to each clamp assembly, the body assembly consists of only three parts, and (2) means for precluding dislodgement of a garment from its hanger by dislodgement forces encountered during transportation and push/pull forces arising during manipulation of garments on said hangers by customers in retail outlets. The hanger body assembly is particularly well suited for chain molding whereby the cost of the hanger is at a near absolute minimum.
A worldwide mode of doing business in the garment industry has evolved in recent years due to economic factors. For example, garments may be very inexpensively manufactured in less developed countries such as Sri Lanka, the garment hanger factory may be located in Taiwan or Hong Kong, and the garments may be destined for sale in the U.S. Thus it is quite common today for garments to be made in one country, the hangers on which the garments are to be displayed made in another country, and the garment displayed for sale in yet a third country.
At the retail sales level, there is an increasing trend to employ fewer and fewer selling personnel, indeed, the trend has almost reached a self-service mode of selling, though a few sales personnel will always be required for providing style information and fitting. The result however is that the ratio of number of garments to each sales person is increasing. While this ratio does not, in itself, present problems at the retail sale level (due to some extent at least, to lowered expectations of sales clerk assistance by retail customers), the greater number of garments in a retail store department presents logistics problems. For example, at the end of a selling day it is the duty of the sales personnel to straighten up the racks so that a neat and tidy appearance is presented to the eyes of the customers as they enter the department on the next selling day. The greater the number of garments on the racks per each sales person, the greater will be the time required by each sales person to straighten the racks, a fact which is not appreciated by sales personnel at the end of their shift. Part of the straightening process involves pulling a garment, say a size 36 men""s slacks, which has been inadvertently placed in the size 38 section of the rack and inserting it into the size 36 section. At the present time this task can be very time consuming and frustrating, especially when the rack space is limited as it always is for a period of time after a new season""s inventory has been received. Specifically, the pulling out and pushing in motions of extracting a garment from one location on a rack and inserting the garment into another location on the rack can result in a garment on either the moved hanger or a racked hanger dropping its garment, or at least one side of the garment. This usually occurs when the clip of one hanger engages the clip of another hanger in a direction and with a force to cause one jaw of one of the interfering clips to open slightly, thereby releasing the griping pressure on the garment and letting it drop under the impetus of its own weight. When such an event occurs the time to straighten a rack is increased, much to the annoyance of the sales personnel.
The problem of contact between two hangers with resultant spillage also occurs in the absence of a need to change the physical location of a garment along the axis of a suspending rack. Specifically, during the course of a selling day adjacent garments will be pulled off the racks, or tilted upwardly for viewing, by customers, following which little or no effort is made to make sure that the viewed garment is returned to a level position. Indeed, at the end of a selling day, some hangers will be level, some will be tipped upwardly at their outer end (i.e. the end closest to the customer), and some will be tipped upwardly at their inner end. The result is a very untidy appearance. To return the garments to a neat, organized condition sales clerks prefer to either simply press downwardly on the upturned hangers or, at most, wiggle adjacent off-tilted hangers back and forth slightly so as to enable the garments to come back to a neutral position in which they hang straight down. Unfortunately these simple hand motions can also result in dropped garments due, to a considerable extent, to unlocking forces being exerted on one jaw of the two jaws which form the clamp assembly at the end of each hanger. A basic cause of this problem is the fact that in most hangers in use today the upper portion of the clamp which extends upwardly above the jaw is exposed in the sense that it projects into space outside the boundaries, and particularly the width-dimensions, of the hanger.
A further problem which is keenly felt by the clothing manufacturers, though only indirectly by the ultimate consumer, is the substantial cost of the hangers currently in wide use in the industry. The current hangers have a seven piece hanger body assembly consisting of the hanger body, a front half and a rear half of each clamp assembly, and two biasing means, such as spring clips, one for each clamp assembly. This substantial number of individual parts increases cost since the fixturing required to assemble the parts is quite extensive and hence substantial labor and capital costs are required. In some hangers one half of each clamp assembly may be molded integrally with the hanger body, but this type of hanger still consists of five individually manufactured components and the associated labor and capital costs are little, if any, reduced as compared to the seven part hanger body assembly.
This invention is a garment hanger which overcomes all of the above described problems in a single hanger. Specifically, the garment hanger of this invention has a hanger body assembly consisting of a maximum of three individual parts, including two biasing means such as spring clips, and is adapted for chain molding whereby molding costs, and subsequent assembly costs are very substantially reduced over all hangers currently on the market. Further, the hanger (a) during transportation following assembly to a garment, (b) in the retail sales outlet, and (c) at all other times, grip a garment in such a fashion that the gripping pressure is not released and a garment dropped no matter how many shakes and bumps the hanger is subjected to during transportation or how quickly and carelessly garments are pulled from a rack and reinserted by customers, or pressed downwardly from above by the hands of a sales clerk passing over a series of hangers to bring the series into level alignment.
It is a further aim of this invention to accomplish all of the foregoing in a hanger which has a very low profile; that is, a hanger in which the clamp assembly at each end of the generally horizontally oriented hanger body does not project above the upper surface of the hanger body.